


ST One-Shot #2 - What if Mike never had to wait for Eleven?

by inktopia



Series: Stranger Things - One Shots [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Childhood Sweethearts, Courage, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friendship/Love, Horror, Mileven Day, Oaths & Vows, One Shot, Promises, Romance, Science Fiction, The Upside Down, Trust, What-If, What-if Challenge, Young Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 12:41:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19768414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inktopia/pseuds/inktopia
Summary: Mike Wheeler had never fallen in love, at least not in the usual sense of the word and definitely not with a girl before. Of all the things he cared for in this world, the strange species of humans figured at the bottom of his list. But then why was letting go of her so painful? Why did it feel as if a part of him was being taken away forever? The paladin didn't know the answers but decided to find out as he ran towards the battlefield where the last mage waged a futile war against her fate.





	ST One-Shot #2 - What if Mike never had to wait for Eleven?

****

**One-Shot#2**

**What if Mike never had to wait for Eleven?**

The rectangular white lamps lining the ceiling kept flickering as Mike was hurled backward by an invisible force, entirely against the laws of nature and he hit the wall with a thump and laid there, unable to move a single muscle. To be honest, the crash did not actually hurt that much, but the scene unfolding right in front of his eyes drove a jackhammer inside his guts and ripped it to shreds.

Mike Wheeler had never fallen in love, at least not in the usual sense of the word and definitely not with a girl before. Oh, he cherished a lot of things; his D&D games, his disconnected yet charming family, his collection of weird and exquisite toys - especially the millennium falcon from Star Wars, his new bike that his parents got him on his birthday, and he really appreciated his friends who had been at his side for years. But to his utter surprise, at that very moment, he was willing to leave everything behind to chase after an absurd thought; _El,_ more precisely, the girl who had just tossed him away with her telekinetic powers, but he wasn't angry or terrified at all. He wasn't sure what had changed, but he did recall his dad saying that love was like a hurricane that caught you from the right when you were looking at your left, but in this case, it crashed onto him from eleven different directions and knocked out his senses. Every redundant thought left his mind, and every ounce of extra strength left his body. Now, only one pair remained; _a dream of taking El to the Snowball, and a flickering pulse of force to do the unthinkable._

"I won't let you leave, you promised," Mike murmured and used the last ounce of stamina left in his body to stand up. It was a wonder he didn't collapse from the strain, after all, his little body had been through hell and back that night, but there was no time to give into weaknesses. Right about now, the girl who he adored from the bottom of his heart was about to go away forever. He wasn't sure how he knew that she was never going to come back, maybe it was from spending too much time with her during the last week, perhaps he could feel her intentions just by looking into her eyes, or probably because she had just turned around and bid goodbye to him. Mike stopped for a second and ran the word a few times inside his head, then he ignored the puddles of tears filling up his eyes and took a step forward.

The lights started flickering rapidly as Eleven raised her arm towards the Demogorgon that was pinned to the blackboard on the wall. The beast roared, and the noise from the flickering lamps mixed with the cacophony unleashed hell inside the classroom. Dustin covered his ears with his palms and squealed in terror while Lucas somehow managed to overcome the dreaded feeling inside his stomach and lurched forward to grab his foolish friend who was about to intervene a battle being fought by demons. Mike jerked his hand away with a shout, "Go away, Lucas. I won't let her..."  
His speech was cut short when El started yelling as she pushed the Demogorgon back into the wall with unimaginable force - this was the power of the real monster that had walked into their lives. Any sane person would have taken one fleeting look at the battlefield and run away like a rabbit being chased by hounds but not Mike Wheeler. He had always been a fool, but this time, he was a fool with a cause. He blinked a few times to clear his eyes, and during every flicker, he saw her gorgeous face; sometimes beaming with joy, other times gasping in wonder and the last time, crying in agony as she was about to leave the one boy who had given her a home and a name.

"EL?" Mike shouted in a broken voice and began running. His friends' cries were drowned out by the discord in the classroom, but Mike could clearly see a strange cloud of dark particles coming out from the Demogorgon, which was now wailing like a dying beast. The haze began engulfing Eleven slowly as her form faded and reappeared under the flickering light. Mike was almost there, and his eardrums were on the verge of bursting from the noise, but he didn't quit. One pair of organs were nothing compared to the heart that kept him alive. Smiling at the thought, he reached El and jumped towards her with his arms stretched forward. The heavens roared, and Mike felt a cold wave engulfing him and numbing his conscience, but his arms were finally wrapped around a soft and nimble form, as it should have been. _Nothing mattered anymore._

A lifetime later, Mike felt a horrible pain tearing the muscles all throughout his body. He opened his mouth to cry out in pain but couldn't even feel his throat, it had gone completely numb. So he decided to lay on the hard floor and figure out where he was and a few seconds later, jerked his eyes opened as he recalled everything. It took a few seconds for the blurred texture to form into a wall; specifically, it was the ceiling in the classroom. However, it didn't look like anything he had ever seen in his life. The room was alight with a strange bluish glow that came from some unknown light source, and in that dim radiance, he found himself stranded in the Upside Down.

After struggling for a few seconds with his strained limbs, Mike was able to sit up and observe his surroundings. He was still inside the classroom inside his school, but it looked nothing like what he had ever seen in his life, even though he had tried imagining it. When Mike and his gang were theorizing about the strange place from their favorite board game, they had discussed in detail what it might have looked like. Dustin thought it would be an endless swamplike landscape filled with unimaginable monsters from every horror story they had heard in their lives. Lucas was more inclined towards an empty space with no lights, or stars, or anything but he did agree to the part about the monsters. Now that Mike was here, and he hoped he wasn't dead and gone to hell, the Upside Down actually looked like their own world - a mirror version of Earth, just as Mike thought it would be, well if the Earth was taken over by Cthulhu. Mike shivered at that thought and climbed up on his feet, then almost fell down when he couldn't find Eleven around him.

"What the hell?" Mike cursed as he ran his eyes around the room full of broken furniture and vine-covered walls. He clearly remembered grabbing her when he was pulled in, but she was nowhere to be found, and that thought sapped the remaining strength from his body.  
_'She's got to be here somewhere,'_ Mike thought and heard a reply from his mind, _'Unless she was taken by the Demogorgon._ ' The thought froze his blood, and he desperately tried thinking about all the happy times he had spent with her. Maybe she had somehow managed to stay back in the real world, and that meant he was going to die alone inside this hellhole. But even at his darkest hour, Mike was at peace with the thought of perishing by himself, because for better or worse, he had managed to save Eleven from her fate. And to a hero of the former AV Club, it was a noble ending to a rather monotonous life.

There was nothing of significance inside the otherwise mirror image of the room from Hawkins Middle School. The desks were the same, though broken and tarnished by a strange corruption that had also devoured the walls. It was almost alive, responding when Mike stepped on them by screeching and coiling away. He decided to stay away from them. There was enough glow to recognize the surroundings, and his memories of his school helped him to navigate as he quietly walked out of the classroom and entered the hallway. Some strange particles were floating in the air, and they burnt his throat when he breathed them in and made him gag. He took out his soiled handkerchief and tied it around his face to form a makeshift mask, and once his coughing cleared, he was finally able to correctly see what the mirror image of their world really looked like. The corridor was glowing with a strange aura that allowed him to recognize the walls and the charred vines running along its length. Millions of white flakes were floating in the almost still air, and a slight draft carried them towards the front, towards a glowing hole in the wall.

"THE GATE," Mike shouted in joy and started running towards the exit. The thought of getting out of this hellhole and seeing his friends again, to breathe the fresh air of the outside world, and to finally spent a night with Eleven wiped out his fatigue, and with renewed vigor, he kept sprinting towards the opening that was slowly shrinking in size. He was sure that he would be able to make it out. After all, the gap was just a few meters away, and he was a small kid. He could fit through the collapsing circle of light even if it was reduced to half its current diameter. After sprinting for a minute, Mike reached the gateway and took a deep breath to calm his racing heart. Some kind of weird rubbery membrane was covering the exit. He pushed his hands through, and it started stretching. _'Come on, just a little bit more,'_ Mike gritted his teeth and pushed and finally his right hand pierced the white membrane and went outside.

"Whooo!" Mike shouted and inserted his other hand through the hole, now all that was left was for him to push out his head and then his body, and he would be home free. Grinning in joy, he leaned forward, but then he froze. A fraction of a moment earlier, his ears had picked up a faint voice from somewhere calling his name. It had taken another fraction to process it, but then his brain got stuck in a loop for a second to make sense out of it. The muffled howl felt like the voice of someone who he knew from the bottom of his young heart, someone, who against all the odds, was stuck inside the Upside Down because the voice came from behind him. Mike cursed and looked out through the small opening made by his hands through the gooey curtain, the bright lights of the corridor in his school welcomed him to the outside world. The air smelled fresh and felt warm to the touch. He stared at the outside world longingly, images of his friends and family flashing by his eyes one at a time like a kaleidoscope and bringing back memories that felt all too real, but distant.

Mike recalled his home, the wooden panels on the floor of his bedroom, the toys that his mom kept neatly arranged on the shelf, his sisters' banter and father's oblivious nature. Inside his memory palace, he walked around, seeing his world, and his friends who were playing D&D with him on a rainy day. Of course, like most of the times, he was the dungeon master. Lucas winked at Dustin as he placed a figure on the board, they clearly were up to something. Will was sitting beside them, thinking about some strategy that was sure to get him killed along with the party. Mike suppressed an evil grin as he prepared the surprise of a lifetime for his friends. But then, for some unknown reason, he looked towards his left and then dropped his board along with all his plans for that night.

There was a small makeshift tent there, made using a bedsheet draped over a few bits of spare furniture. Underneath the canopy was a small lamp, glowing weakly and illuminating an empty space that cried out for warmth. Mike knew what it was; a home for a girl who never had one, a shelter for a soul that sought refuge from the horrors of human apathy, a temple for a promise sworn before the goddess of innocence. _It was the home Mike Wheeler had made for Eleven._

El had been through a lot of strange situations in her life. Once upon a time, like the fairy tales that Papa used to read to her, she was imprisoned inside an unusual place with even more outlandish people. First of all, there were the men wearing white dresses who would be sitting in front of extraordinary machines for hours, and when they were not looking at the dials and the counters, they would be looking after Eleven. She had no idea what their fascination was with her, but after Kali ran away, they were almost obsessed with everything they made her do; like the time they put her in a tank of water and sent her to the black place with the monster. Another time they almost made her kill a cat, which still made her feel nauseous. But this time, she thought that she was inside the strangest place she had ever been in her life. It was the room where she had destroyed the white monster who came after Mike and his friends, but it all looked so wrong. It was missing something.

A spark went off inside her head as she remembered a soft pair of arms wrapping around her waist just before she was sent to this place, and she could recall every detail about him; Mike, the boy who liked her not like a sister. And he was nowhere to be seen.  
"Mike?" El whispered weakly and stood up on her feet, it took an inhuman effort to just stay still. Her head was tearing apart in pain, and her throat was as dry as a piece of parchment. But she had no time to waste. She needed to find Mike now, one reason to save him from this Upside down place, and another reason to know why he pressed his lips against her back in the big hall room. She could never imagine doing it with someone else, it was disgusting, _but when it came to Mike..._ El blushed at that nonsense thought and limped outside into the corridor.

The outside looked just like the inside of the room, not that she was expecting it to change, but still, the ghastly blue glow and charred walls made her feel sad inside. Something terrible had happened to this place, and Mike was somewhere inside. With the remaining strength inside her body, she shouted his name as best she could, "Mike? Maaaiike? Maaaaaaiiiiiiike?"  
Her voice broke, but she still kept yelling as she walked towards the end of the passageway, arms hanging on her side and stress trying to bring her little body down. But she had to move, not for herself but for Mike. There was a certain ring to that word; _Mike._ Thinking about him always made her happy, unlike any word she had ever heard in her life. She didn't know why but she wanted to ask him a question that she recalled from a fairy tale Papa had read to her long ago. Back in the hall room when Mike was saying those tricky things, she couldn't remember the word, but she was sure that Mike would know it. And once she got her answer, she would run with him to his house and hide inside that strange room he made for her, and she wouldn't let him out of her sight even for a second. She smiled and walked forward until she reached the end of the corridor.

El slowly peeked out from the corner and looked at the passage that ran away towards.... _'THE GATE!'_  
There was a bright circle of light pulsing at the far end of the long corridor. El carefully observed the vicinity for any signs of Mike, or any ungodly creature that may be hanging around, but the coast seemed clear. But she couldn't move. The gate was open, but Mike might still be inside, and she couldn't leave this terrible world without him. But then curiosity got the better of her. She slowly started walking towards the gate, all the while telling herself that she would just take a look and then use her powers to hold the gate open. And then she would search for Mike and take him home. Smiling at the thought of seeing him again, El closed her distance from the gate and then stopped once she reached a few meters away from it.

The white sheet covering the gate was torn open and was loosely hanging on the outside. She hoped that it was Mike, the thought of him leaving the place alive comforted her beyond anything she had ever felt before. The only task left was to leave and then run to his home, and then ask him for an eggo. She was starving, and her stomach would growl every now and then to remind her of her mortal needs. A few seconds passed while El was thinking about what to do. Then for assurance, she turned around and shouted one last time, "Mike?"

A second later, her call was acknowledged by a growl coming from the back that wrecked her nerves. _'No, I killed it,'_ El prayed as she peeked over her shoulder and found a clawed arm entering the gateway and tearing the sheet. And then a white colored monster, quite like the one she obliterated back the classroom, slowly crawled through the collapsing circle and landed right in front of the wall. Then it looked up and roared like thunder as a set of serrated teeth opened and sealed her fate. El slowly backed away, unsure of her ability to kill another one of those abominations again. The gate slowly closed up behind the beast as it prowled forward, sniffing the air and measuring its enemy. It could sense the terrible fear that was now slowly taking control of El's body, and it confidently crawled ahead on all four legs.

El could've run away, the corridor was empty behind her, but somehow she knew that there would be no escaping her fate tonight. Of course, she was already expecting to die when she faced off against the other beast tonight to save Mike, but somehow after remaining alive through the ordeal, she had hoped in the futility of escaping this place and running back to him. That's all she could think of at this moment; Mike, Mike, and Mike. She remembered his bright eyes and beautiful smile, his voice when he said that she was pretty and again confirmed it today. But over and above everything, she remembered the special moment they had shared tonight, where Mike said a lot of strange things and then touched his lips against hers. She smiled as a drop of tear ran down her eyes, she didn't have the strength left to cry anymore, not that she was afraid. No, she wanted to cry because she would never see him again, and the thought made her sadder than even the monster that was about to end her life. El closed her eyes and waited for the end. A second past, another, and then she could finally smell the strange stench that was coming from the beast. It was close, she tensed her body and waited, unable to even feel her powers anymore.

"Leave my girlfriend alone, you mutated raccoon!"  
El opened her eyes and shouted, "Mike?"  
Then before her very eyes, the unthinkable happened. Mike came running out of the other corner and stopped a short distance away from the beast. The abomination glanced at Mike but ignored him. El was much closer and was the easier victim, after all, Mike would not be going anywhere soon. But he had apparently guessed that this would happen and came prepared. Without wasting any time, he picked up a small piece of shattered ceramic tile from the floor and then jabbed it into a thick vine on the wall beside him. Immediately, the snake-like reed coiled away with an inhuman screech which was drowned by the painful roar from the monster. Then it turned and raced towards Mike, who was already running away towards the other end of the corridor.

"El, open the gate..." Mike paused as he banked around a door and entered a classroom and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Get out."  
And then he ran through the room and came out at a different passageway, one that reached towards the parking lot on the backside. If he could make it to the end of the corridor, he would be able to run outside and take his chances with the Demogorgon in an open field. From whatever he had learned about the monster, its ability to sneak through close quarters didn't excite him about the probability of facing it inside the school building.  
"Almost there, almost..." Mike breathed painfully and tried to force down some pungent air through his raw throat and into his tired lungs, and then he breathed it all out, "SHIT."  
The door at the end of the passageway was now blocked by the vines that were slowly creeping out from the shadows and flowing around the worn out latches. When attacked, the body's immune system would defend, and Mike Wheeler had just waged war against the entire Upside Down. It was all clear to him now; how the vines and the Demogorgon and whatever else lived in this hellhole were all part of the same being; _a living planet._ But it was too late. He slowly backed up towards the door, keeping an eye on the vines on the floor that were hungrily looking for the infection.

The Demogorgon charged out of the classroom a second later and then shot towards Mike. He was literally frozen in place and unable to move. The beast was nearly upon him. But then it jumped up and crashed into the ceiling and went halfway through the concrete. It remained stuck there and moaned painfully while its feet kept dangling in the air. It was, indeed, a spectacular scene.  
_'What the hell? Is it trying to open a portal?'_ Mike thought and although he was stuck in a grim situation, couldn't help but laugh at the Demogorgon when it dropped down but before reaching the floor, turned around and crashed into the concrete with another painful moan, and went halfway in again. The pattern somehow reminded Mike of someone but before he could connect the dots, Eleven walked out of the classroom, a strange fury burning in her eyes, the same rage and hatred that he had seen when she saved him from the bullies and then when she blew the brains out of the military who pulled a gun on Mike. This Demogorgon would be dying a painful death alright, but Mike was far more worried about the streaks of blood that were now coming down Eleven's eyes and ears and running down her neck. He needed to end this soon.

When Mike disappeared around the corner, shouting at El to run away, she felt something change inside her, something that had finally found a reason to wake up after a long slumber. It enkindled an extinguished fire inside her heart and spread the warmth through her body; _a reason to live was as good as a reason to fight._ And she would fight, today, tomorrow and as long as it would take to save the one boy who owed her an answer. And then she ran after him as fast as she could. Ahead of her, just beyond her field of vision, she heard Mike cursing loudly and immediately knew that he was in trouble. The monster running after him exited the classroom and then turned left and dashed forward. El had had enough; she focused all her powers into one point and then grabbed the beast, even though it was beyond her line of sight, and then drove it towards the ceiling with enough rage to flip over ten cars. And then she hammered it down into the ground with enough force to blow out the brains of every personnel of Hawkins Lab in a single attempt. A few moments later, she came out of the classroom and breathed a sigh of relief after seeing Mike standing near the door with a stupified look on his face.

Mike thought about running ahead and hugging El as tightly as he could, but the twitching legs of the half-buried Demogorgon sticking out of the ground distracted him. The vines were coiling around them and screeching in a continuous tone and from somewhere far away, Mike heard a strange buzzing noise like a billion bees flying together in complete disharmony. Something big was heading their way; the living planet was sending its champion to take out a stupid boy and his oblivious girlfriend. But El came first.

"El? Are you okay?" Mike ran around the Demogorgon and reached El and then after seeing her standing right in front of him, couldn't help but to hug her. El couldn't speak as she was hit by a barrage of emotions, most of them she couldn't explain, but they all led to one conclusion; she was complete. And so was Mike. They buried their heads in each other's shoulders and felt their heartbeats becoming one, and their souls finding a reason to exist once again. Mike pulled away and shouted, "You're okay. You came back. You..."  
He couldn't finish his sentence, nor did he need to. The tears streaming down his cheek, resonating with the ones coming down her blood smeared face conversed to their souls, in more ways than possible by using words alone. El couldn't speak either, she simply nodded and smiled at the boy who meant the world to her.

"El, we need to get out. The gate closed, you think you can open it?" Mike asked in a concerned tone.  
El hesitantly replied, "I don't know..."  
Mike thought for a few seconds and looked back at the Demogorgon which was barely moving, and made no attempt to climb out of his impromptu grave on the floor. Then his eyes sparkled as he turned around and spoke, "I think I know how to get out. Listen..."

Sometime later, the Demogorgon slowly started rising out of the hole in the ground, like a screwed up Upside Down angel. Given the pounding handed to it by an enraged Eleven, it was pretty much halfway to the Upside Down afterlife, or whatever was the equivalent. But it was still alive, and that gave Mike the idea that El was executing right now. He wasn't sure if it was going to work, but they had no other options. The vines had grown and spread around them, sealing all possible exits out of the school, and the buzzing noise was almost upon them.  
"Ready?" Mike asked while holding El around the waist.  
She nodded and then raised her arms, and then the Demogorgon shrieked in terrible agony, just like how its predecessor had roared as it was disintegrated by El that night, but not before it teleported them to the Upside Down. So, Mike figured the reverse logic could apply here. Faced with an existential crisis, the Demogorgon's subconscious survival mechanism would try to open the portal to get his master to safety, and with a bit of help from El, it might indeed take them back to their world. After all, they were out of other options.

The forest of vines started screeching in their sonorous tone as they coiled and writhed around Mike and Eleven. Mike assessed the area and prayed that they would be able to get out before the living forest decided to take out the infection by itself. The buzzing noise suddenly increased by a thousand folds as the ceiling crashed inwards and formed a gigantic hole about a few meters away from where Eleven was trying to break the living Demogorgon apart, and through that hole, Mike saw a dark cloud hovering outside. It had a bulbous head, and long tentacle-like arms made up of an infinite number of fine dust particles, all swirling like a continuous chain of a living tornado. Red lightning flashed in the sky that was visible behind that creature, and for a brief second, Mike could see a grotesque monstrosity descending upon them; the angry God of Upside Down had finally arrived to punish the heretics. Mike swallowed and turned around to warn Eleven, but he never got the chance.

A bright flash of light came from the Demogorgon that was slowly disintegrating into black fragments, and then the haze of particles started engulfing Mike and Eleven, standing together in the corridor. Outside, the monstrosity roared like the hum of billions of angry bees and threw a tentacle towards them. Mike braced for the impact as he held Eleven tightly. If death was inevitable, then at least he should die while holding the girl who taught him how to fall in love. _And this was how their story would end, rather poetic..._ The world disappeared around him.

A lifetime later, Mike regained consciousness for the second time that day but didn't dare to open his eyes. He was not so sure where he was, it certainly smelled like their own world, but he found it difficult to breathe. Maybe he was dying, but the weight on his chest indicated that it wasn't a lack of air; instead, a physical object trying to suffocate him to death. Finally, after some deliberation, he opened his eyes and found Eleven lying right on top of him with her back facing his body. He wanted to shout in joy but couldn't breathe, so he gently turned around and laid her down to the ground. She came back a few seconds later and saw Mike staring right at her, their faces inches apart from each other. There was a brief pause, and then as soon as Mike tried saying something, El thrust her head forward and kissed him on the lips, completely taking him off-guard and blowing the remaining air out of his lungs. And when she pulled away, he grinned like a fool just like how she had smiled back in the gym and was now reciprocated when she started laughing too.

It was the dead of the night when Mike and Eleven finally sneaked into the Wheeler residence through a window on the ground floor. As expected, Mike didn't find anyone up, his parents had gone to sleep, and Nancy was probably with Steve somewhere, studying human anatomy, which had suddenly piqued his interest. He took El to the washroom and cleaned her up nicely, all the while talking about a thousand things which he knew were not making any sense to her. But she smiled at every one of his words and tried pitching in, often getting stuck with a compound word or two. After changing into fresh clothes belonging to Mike, they finally came down to the basement and then El ran into the tent while dragging Mike along with her. He had already taken out a box of Eggos from the refrigerator which he emptied onto a plate placed between them. Then Mike covered the open end of the canopy and gently spoke, "You wanted to ask me something in the washroom? About the kiss?"  
His ears went red even though he had blabbered to Eleven about what a kiss was a little while earlier, and he looked away from her in shame.  
El took a bite from an Eggo and asked innocently, "Mike. Papa said, if we kiss, then we are married. Are we married?"

**Author's Note:**

> I can't be the only one whose heart was crushed when Eleven went away from Mike on that fateful night. And even before moving onto S2, I imagined all the possible ways they could be reunited again, and one of them I gave life in this story. This narrative borrows a few elements from the second season and a bit of my imagination about the upside down, something I might use in one of my long-fics someday. If you've liked this, please leave a comment below, and if you haven't, then definitely provide the feedback. Other stories are running in my mind right now as I draft my next long fic post ST3, and I will be writing them one by one as time permits. The next one might be a Hopper X Mike heart to heart before 3 inches became a thing ;)


End file.
